Alone
by Roadstergal
Summary: Rimmer's thoughts post Stoke Me A Clipper. Why can't Lister just leave him alone? Mild slash implied.


You just won't leave me alone, will you?

Not even back when I was still alive. You had to play the guitar (and I use the word 'play' in the loosest sense) while I was trying to revise. Or you would blast your Rasta Billy Skank. Or you would breathe down my neck. You could never just leave me be. You would hum a funeral dirge just as I was extracting a rivet. You would have a wet dream and yell, "Do me hard, Wilma!" at the top of your lungs at 2am when I had head shift duty the next day.

Becoming dead was not the most enjoyable thing I've ever done. Rather painful and somewhat humiliating, to be totally frank. But if you had paused time at that moment and asked if I felt good about anything at that point, pretty much all I would have been able to dig up would be never having to see your irritating too-happy smirk ever again. But you couldn't leave me alone, even in death. You had to call me back - an impotent, formless, half-real simulation of myself. I bet you had a laugh over that. Holly told me that he brought me back for you. If you had died, too, I could have rested in peace. What sick part of your psyche made _me_ your Chief Sanity Officer?

What an enviable position. Ensurer of Sanity for the man who cleans his toe fungus with lager and a toothbrush.

Things really _were_ better on the Backwards planet. Couldn't you have left me there? As an electronic entity, I had the same limitless lifespan there that I have here - and it was a good place, a place where every death was a rebirth. But no, you had to start a bar unbrawl and get me the sack, so back to the Red Trash Can with Rimsy.

I only had one possession of my very own, and you know what it was. You damn well couldn't leave that alone, because it meant something to me. You couldn't keep your snotty fingers off of it, could you. To save that lump of termite-chewed wood that you call a guitar (and yes, it does make a noise to wake the dead - you woke me regularly from horrible nightmares of cats being tortured by inquisitors), you destroyed the only physical object I had left of my own. No, you couldn't bloody well leave that alone.

And thank you for that little trip through your intestinal tract. I saw horrors there that would have the Marquis de Sade calling it a night and looking for his hat.

I thought I had finally given you the slip when I was accepted onto the Holoship. Finally, a real crew, a real ship, a real mission. Away from _you_. But - how could I stay there, knowing what Nirvanah had done? I know you'd laugh and make crude jokes, Listy, but she was the first person who had ever treated me with respect - and believed I could be more than a smeghead, some day. Yes, I loved her. So I had to give my place back to her - even though it delivered me right back into your meddling hands.

Of course I ran when I had the chance. You smegging well backed me into a corner; you _made_ me get onto that tissue paper husk that just needed one good sneeze to fall apart. You made your bed, Listy, and I let you lie in it. Toodle pips.  
Well, yes, there was that whole clone business. Nobody is perfect. Certainly not perfect enough to populate a planet. Really, do you think a planet of Listers would have been any better? A world of meddling odiferous directionless goits lapping up curry in-between bouts of pointless sex with any native creature with a hole unfortunate enough to pass by?

Do know what your worst bit of meddling was, Listy? It was not disturbing my revision. It was not the breakfast of hallucinogenic mushrooms. It was not hacking my beloved camphorwood chest to pieces. It was not even that dirty trick you pulled on the psi-moon.  
No, it was when you meddled me into Ace. Yes, I finally put two and two together, miladdo. It was your meddle to end all meddles, turning good old Arn into a gay pride pinup in a tinfoil flight suit. You saw those light bees, Listy; you knew it was as good as a death sentence. But the show must go on - for your entertainment.

But even now, you won't leave me alone.

I rarely dreamt, after my death. Whatever neural processes make for dreams, my hologrammatic simulation doesn't simulate those very efficiently. I would usually just pass out for a couple of hours, and come back to myself again.  
But I dream every night, now. I dream things no man should dream. How did you _do_ it, Listy? How do you continue to reach out your filthy fingers with a giggle, and meddle in my life across the boundaries of alternate dimensions? I dream of you, smiling at me as you never did before, touching me as you never did before, making me feel things... I never felt before. I used to wake up in a cold sweat. Now, more often, I wake up in warm... something else. I can't stop it. Why are you doing this? I thought, by now, that I would have been through enough, for your amusement.

Why can't you leave me alone, Listy?


End file.
